The Alien Artifact 6 (Part I)

The Alien Artifact 6

(Novelette)

V Bertolaccini

This
edition published 2015 by CB

This is a
Smashwords edition 2015

Copyright
Victor Bertolaccini

ISBN:
978-1-3102-2303-7

All
rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise,
without prior written permission of the copyright owner. Nor can it
be circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in
which it is published and without similar condition including this
condition being imposed on a subsequent purchaser.

All
characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance
to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

The first
novelette and half of The Alien Artifact 6 novel!

Prologue

The Voyager

The sphere hurtled in from the black depths
of space so fast that it was undetected by observatories and
astronomers about the globe.

The object was only detected with highly
advanced technology to detect fast objects, for military and
unidentified flying object detection, and only Russian intelligence
agencies investigated its source because of its colossal velocity
and that the location of its descent was traced to a specific
location at the Antarctic.

The exact location was found to be at a
confidential hidden American military base, where they began their
investigations.

The scientists at the secret underground ice
station base had not even known of its arrival, and might even have
recorded it as an asteroid of immense proportions if they had
detected it, and it had been only recorded as an immense earthquake
or disturbance of unknown origins, which had last seconds and had
occurred during the night.

The magnitude recorded by their equipment had
shown the tremendous power it had, and they had then used
examinations of satellite images to examine and trace where it had
landed, and entered the ice, like a crazy shooting star exploding
out of the night sky and blasting into the ice.

After a great deal of observations, research,
and discussions by leading Russian scientists they agreed that the
thing that they had found had to have artificial origins, and by
its arrival and power they believed that it had highly advanced
technology of unknown origins, and that they had to investigate it
as far as they could, even if the confidential American ice station
was located there.

There could also be more of them! They had to
get anything that they could on it and give a detailed account of
its origins and technology no matter what! The technology could
well make it worthwhile! Could they make contact or check what was
there and analyze it?

There was no proof that anything had emerged
from it and no encounters were reported around the world! They had
no details of its origins or destination and if it had achieved its
objective!

They discovered that its forces had melted
the ice and the water had frozen over it and that it had hidden
itself away there, and that something was buried deep beneath the
ice near the ice station!

Part I

Ice Station X1

Chapter 1

The Alien
Encounter

Out of the silent empty Antarctic night
high-powered rifle blasts were astonishing, especially in the fatal
blizzard engulfing Willis! The explosions sounded so powerful he
believed they were using some form of powerful explosive in the
bullets!

Whoever was after him had to be crazy and out
for the kill, and stupid for entering them into such a blizzard and
fury of snow! He could not realize who was there and just accepted
that they might be trying to kill him for being a leading scientist
at the ice station!

Ice Station X1 had to be located in the
coldest and most remote place on the planet! Even in the summer the
place had been deadly cold to him! As far as he was concerned there
was nothing there to kill for and nobody there that he thought
capable of doing so! It and the coldness made him cringe, and
blindly rush on through the blinding blizzard, lost.

A loud explosion blasted out and a bullet
thudded somewhere nearby and he had to run through the dark snow
landscape for his life! He dared not use his light and he could
barely see anything!

The men could be heard over to his side and
he realized that they could have infrared sights and he just dived
into a pile of snow, and buried himself deep. Surely they would not
find him!

Once he realized that nothing had happened he
started to enjoy the rest and being free from being attacked. His
mind raced through what had occurred! Yet he only realized that the
location that he strolled into had been a region that nobody at the
ice station went in, and he started to wonder what was there.

Why would they go to such lengths to kill
him? What could possibly be there? What could be there in such a
desolate place?

When he finally left where he was and started
to return to the ice station, he started tracing where he had been
where they had appeared and started looking around, and strolled
around and found something buried beneath a region on flat snow,
which he wiped the snow and ice away from and revealed a wooden
cover.

Below it he found a vast hole going straight
down deep into the ice below, which had clearly been hollowed out
with some large powerful machine, which he had not seen there. Yet
the region was vast!

Who had dug such a hole? And he wondered if
it was by some foreign country that intended to destroy the secret
military station?

It was then that he discovered an old rope
and harness buried away in the snow, and knew he had a way to climb
down, and he decided to investigate it, while avoiding being killed
by them or the blizzard! He was sure it had been dug for a reason
and that something was just below him!

He swiftly attached the ropes and fitted the
harness around him and shifted in, and turned on his light, and
covered the top with the wooden cover.

Mind-bending sounds and echoes from the
haunting blizzard screamed down through the ice shaft with fury and
left him stunned at the dangers, and no matter how he tried to
shake it off and contemplate identities his thoughts never formed
stable recognitions of what was occurring in the blizzard
above!

The ice that the tunnel went through
fascinated him as it was different from the regular ice below the
ground there! It looked to him to have been formed from water that
had melted and had been frozen quickly afterwards!

Clouds of powdered snow and snowflakes
swirled down and through the beam from his light and he continued
to release the rope, edging him down, seeking to discover what was
below.

He realized that he had avoided being killed
after all and wondered if he was going to be killed later, when he
climbed back up and went outside.

He groaned as he moved down, realizing the
mistake he was making and the trouble he would have getting back to
the surface and trying to find the ice station in the dark.

He stopped and dangled about on his rope and
examined how the tunnel had been cut, while glimpsing parts of the
shaft above, and was surprised again at how large and expensive the
equipment used must have been.

He had always wanted to investigate some
great mystery and it had even helped lead him into becoming a
scientist, at such a far out desolate location, and he wanted to
explore more. He had wanted to explore and discover new things of
value and greatness, and perhaps even be remembered in history
somewhere!

What interested was why they had gone to such
lengths to kill him, and why he had not known about the tunnel!
Surely they had a way of examining below the ice and would have
done it while constructing the underground ice station, especially
with it being of so confidential and belonging to the military.

What treasures could be hidden away in such a
region, with it being one of the last not properly explored
regions?

What was he dealing with though? Why were
they trying to kill him? Were they protecting something that they
had hidden there?

Something of unfathomable unidentifiable
nature could be under him and he had to explore it!

As he lowered himself progressively he
started to realize the depth of it and that there could be
something there!

Something could be secretively built there
with the help of the Russian spies in the ice station, and to be
used to destroy the entire ice station in an atomic war!

He realized the implications of the find and
that he would have to check what was there, no matter what! He
could not let it go, and he had to survive and give the information
to someone.

Willis was blinded by the black abyss below
him as he lowered himself down through the cold tunnel, uniquely
drilled with an incredible precision.

He gripped the rope hard, but spun round, and
fixed his foot against the tunnel wall to stop it, and looked up to
the top of the tunnel and just saw darkness there now, and looked
and listened to what was there, and realized that if he was caught
there they could cut the rope and let him fall to his death at the
bottom. If he never died he would starve to death there!

So far he had been unchallenged with his
insistence in going down and he realized that he best increase his
speed!

A silent thud echoed down from the top and
eventually a cloud of snow came down making him gasp and search for
anything, and consider putting his light out, but he saw that it
was a freak gust of wind blowing into the cover.

He wondered why he was lowering himself so
slowly down when they could easily fall down by freeing the rope
and using his hand to slow and stop it, but it could be
dangerous!

The dangers of being caught were greater and
he did it, and raced down the shaft, with him continuously having
to slow down, while also using his legs and boots against the ice
to slow himself.

When the bottom appeared he stopped and
stared in wonder, and considered what was in the blackness there,
and considered the incredible trouble he would have climbing back
up.

He was mainly confused as to what was there
to be discovered as he made his way there slowly. The ebbing
radiance of the light clearly was increasing and he realized how
tired he had become, and he decided it was best sleeping at the
bottom! Surely the men with the guns above would not come down at
night? They would know the trouble it would be to get back up!

The coldness entering his throat gave him
cough sensations, so he speeded up and unleashed the rope allowing
him to fall faster.

What would the outcome of it be? Would he
even find anything? What could be there? It could have belonged to
earlier scientists, checking for something? The ice station was
old, and a great deal of research had been done there!

Hazy echoes off his deep breathing broke the
extraordinary silence and he examined the ice as he shifted
downwards, and he started to find the cold air was damaging his
throat and was harder to inhale, and he frequently stopped to gasp
for air, while dangling with hideous expectations of plunging into
something dangerous.

A distant upper rumble of wind
eventually released chunks of ice and he realized how dangerous the
place might become if solid ice came crashing down, and that the
place the rope was attached to might not be able to support such
weight after all, of him and the immense rope,
and he considered how he could survive at
the bottom if he fell down there!

In an instant the rope jerked and wildly
oscillated and he spun uncontrollably around and a surge of
blackness engulfed him, and he realized the light had been banged
against the ice and had been turned off, and he realized what he
had missed and what it would be like if he got stuck there in
complete blackness, with him trying to climb back up!

He searched for the light switch while
straining his eyes to see further down to the bottom and thought he
saw something there, but there were no particular features.

When he had turned the dim light on the
tunnel vanished into the darkness at the bottom, and when he
arrived there the light was so faint that he was too busy focusing
on the ice ground to properly see anything, and he only vaguely saw
an immense dark cavity open out!